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1888. 



APPALACHIANS. 



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APPALACHIANS. 



Appalachians, a great mountain -system of North 
America, nearly parallel with the Atlantic coast, and 
extending from the Gulf of St. Lawrence SSW. to the 
west central portion of Alabama. Geologically, it is 
much older than the Western Cordillera, known as the 
Rocky Mountain system, but it is in the main much 
later in geologic date than the Laurentide system, which 
represents it on the north of the St. Lawrence. It is 
the parent of many of the rivers of the Atlantic States; 
but several large streams break its continuity ; and one, 
the river Hudson, is a tidal channel which carries even 
sea-going vessels through the range, a phenomenon very 
unusual in any part of the world. The Appalachians 
consist, in the main, of various parallel ranges, sepa- 
rated by wide valleys. Even the low hill-ranges be- 
tween the mountains and the sea have much of the same 
parallelism, and the sea-coast has in a marked degree the 
same general direction and curvature as the mountains 
themselves; while, far to the NE., the nearly detached 
peninsula of Nova Scotia and the island of New- 
foundland are traversed by ranges exhibiting the same 
parallelism and the same general direction as are seen 
in the Appalachian ranges. In no mountain-system do 
we find better illustrations of the celebrated theory of the 
late H. D. Rogers concerning the process of mountain 
formation than in this. The wave-like structure is re- 



4: A PPA LA CHI A NS. 

garded as due to pulsations in the fluid matter beneath 
the earth's crust, pro[)agated in great waves of translation 
from vast ruptures due to the tension of elastic matter. 
The shape of the ridges, the plications of the strata, 
and the final direction of the flexures, are regarded as 
results of a combined undulating and tangential move- 
ment. Durino; this movement rents occurred alono^ 
some of the bendings, out of which dykes and veins of 
igneous matter were poured. In short, a great earth- 
quake, or succession of earthquakes, here occurred, 
during which the earth's crust received much of that 
corrugation of surface which these mountains at present 
exhibit. At the same time the oscillations of the crust 
seem to have actually thrown forward or floated the 
earth's crust along the surface of the fiery sea on which 
it rested. 

Locally, the Appalachians have various names. In 
the Gaspe Peninsula we find the Shickshock Mountains, 
and then the White Hills, and the Franconia Moun- 
tains of New Hampshire, where Mount Washington 
attains the height of 6293 feet. In the Green Moun- 
tains of Vermont, the disposition of the mountains into 
parallel chains becomes apparent. In Massachusetts, 
the main ridge is locally called the Hoosic Range, and 
the more westward ridge is the Taghkanic. To the east 
of the Hudson lie the Highlands; on the west side of 
the river are the Catskills, Shawangunk Mountains, and 
other groups, with only local exemplifications of paral- 
lelism. In Pennsylvania, the mountain-ridges are long, 
and are marked by a singular evenness of their tops^ 
there being few noteworthy peaks, but many gaps for 
the transmission of streams. Still farther to the SW. 



A PPA LA CHI A NS. 5 

the flat mountain-tops often become wide treeless plains, 
densely covered with grass, and having a soil sometimes 
rich, but often heavy and wet. In some instances, how- 
ever, these narrow plateaus are singularly dry and barren. 
The valleys between the ridges have sometimes an ex- 
tremely fertile soil, resting upon cavernous limestone, 
with beds of valuable iron ore; but some of the valleys 
have a lean slaty soil. In Pennsylvania and Maryland, 
the most seaward of the important ridges is the South 
Mountain or Blue Ridge, which is regarded as identical 
with the Unaka or Smoky Mountain Ridge of North 
Carolina and Tennessee; what is called the Blue Ridge 
of North Carolina being a nearly parallel eastern chain, 
which in the SW. part of Virginia coalesces with the 
Blue Ridge proper. West of the South Mountain of 
Pennsylvania comes the great Alleghany Ridge, which 
often gives name to the whole system. It is much more 
remarkable for its uniformity and flatness of top, and 
for the absence of breaks, than the South Mountain or 
Blue Ridge. In the great valley between the two main 
crests are several minor parallel ridges, and the same 
feature is apparent in the elevated region which is 
bounded eastward by the main Alleghany. The great 
Cumberland Mountain plateau of Kentucky and Ten- 
nessee may be taken as the SW. representative of the 
Alleghanies proper. Crossing Tennessee, the western 
parts of the Carol inas, and the NW. of Georgia, the 
system terminates in the broken hilly plateau of Central 
Alabama. 

Nowhere do the Appalachians reach the snow-line. 
Their highest points occur in North Carolina, where 
Mitchell's Peak reaches the height of 6688 feet. The 



Q APPALACHIANS. 

Appalachians must have been, in the main, developed 
after the Carboniferous, and before the Jurassic period, 
although the material of the NE. part of the range is 
largely referable to a very much more remote age — viz. 
the Huronian, or perhaps even the Laurentian age. 
Whatever strata more recent than these may have once 
helped to form the mountains of New England, they 
have been to a great extent removed by glacial or other 
erosive processes. 

The principal coal-beds of this chain occur in Penn- 
sylvania to the NNE., and in other states southward 
along the mountains to their termination in Alabama, 
the chief coal-basins being either among the mountains, 
or to the westward of them. There are beds of anthra- 
cite coal on the eastern slopes of the Appalachians, 
chiefly in Pennsylvania, west of which the coal be- 
comes bituminous, after we have crossed basins of semi- 
anthracitic and moderately bituminous coal. This coal 
region is one of the most productive, extensive, and im- 
portant anywhere known. Of the metals, by far the 
most important is iron, of which various ores of mag- 
netic, hematitic, and fossil iferous character occur very 
extensively, and are largely wrought. Gold occurs 
chiefly to the eastward of the mountains, and is wrought 
at various points from Virginia to Alabama. Zinc, 
lead, and other metals are found in this range, which 
also affords marbles and other limestones, slates, and a 
great variety of building-stones. 



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